Saturday, October 22, 2016

We are enjoying a wonderfully warm, Indian summer here in Colorado -- most days, at least. Today we went on a 4 mile hike; it was 77 degrees out, with sunshine and blue, blue skies!

Nevertheless -- I'm spending time making snowmen! They are ornaments from "paper clay" and the technique is one I learned from a class I took online, by Dawn. I haven't made them for years, but am getting ready to actually sell at a craft fair (unheard of for me!) so I'm making a new batch for that!

After the little heads dried, I painted their cheeks and noses; now they are ready to be "dressed".

When finished, they will be similar to this guy I made before (above, on a previous year's Christmas tree.) I hope people love them, and buy them! I'm also going to make some different ornaments, and put together some packages of Christmas ephemera to sell. My buddy Rebecca will be doing it with me, and is going to make some stuff, too.

When I was deciding what to create for the craft fair, I dragged up only the Christmas "crafting" supplies (not the decor or anything else...) from the basement. Above are the boxes and boxes filled with stuff. So...you'd think that someone with that much Christmas crafting material wouldn't need any more, right?

You'd think. But, at an estate sale the other day I came across this "tag" covered with glass Christmas balls and decor, and I had to have it. It was just a few cents -- and look at that beautiful blue! I couldn't resist!

I finally found a pair of these socks that I saw long ago -- they really suit me! Especially now, as I've left my job and am applying for new ones. Job hunting, as you may know, is a challenge and really can make you feel like you're going to go nuts. In fact, looking for a new place to work against the backdrop of the upcoming election makes me feel a little bit like the whole world has gone crazy. So, you can see why I needed those socks...

Monday, October 17, 2016

I remember the 80’s -- the days when good jobs were as
plentiful as a young woman’s hopes and dreams. When I was 19 I was working as an Assistant Manager of a commercial
office building -- a job that sounds like much more than it paid. It was fun; I had friends in all 18 offices in the building. They were
usually the people I’d come to know when they called my office to complain
about something: the price of the rent, the temperature in their offices,
something the janitor had or hadn’t done, etc.
After a while, I grew tired of being the complaint department. So, when one of those friends was lured away
from her job to a higher-paying one by an employment agent, I decided to give
that a try myself. And that was how a woman
named Joanne got me a new, better job as a secretary for Borden Foods.

The one job my mother had before becoming a stay-at-home mom
was as a bookkeeper at Borden Foods in San Francisco. When I was small and looked through her jewelry box, the shiny service
pin that was a caricature of Elsie the Cow, Borden’s mascot, always caught my
eye. It made me happy to think that I
would be carrying on the Borden Foods legacy.

My new boss at Borden was Bill, and he was a pudgy,
partially balding mid-Western salesman. He and his family had moved to the bay area for his new job as a District Sales Manager.
He was very obviously not from around there, and struck me as in a little
over his head in his new position.
Though he tried to seem confident and in control, I’d have bet that his
palms were always sweaty.

The job itself was very simple: as DSM, Bill traveled to the
sales offices of local food chains to promote Borden’s line of products. I stayed behind in the office,
answered the seldom-ringing phone, and typed his letters. The very first task I had to
conquer was learning to operate a Telex machine. Every morning I
had to turn on the Telex and print out the sales report for his region. It was a strange little contraption, spitting
out a strip of paper punched with dots which, when inserted into a reader, were
translated into words and figures that were pounded out in faint ink onto a
roll of thin paper. When it finished, I
tore the sheet off and had it waiting on Bill’s desk for him when he
arrived. Oh, the days before the
Internet!

The second thing I was tasked with was setting up the front
office. All I had on my desk was a
telephone and a nice typewriter (I think both were rented) and Bill had already
set up an account with a local office supply store. He handed me a thick color catalog of
everything from pencils to photocopiers, and told me to order myself what I
needed for my desk.

Little did Bill know, but office supplies were one of my
favorite things. They still are. When I was a child, I looked forward to the
beginning of the school year, when we’d all sit in our rows of desks with our
hands folded in front of us, and the teachers and room mothers would walk up
and down the rows, bestowing upon us shiny, unsharpened pencils, 2 each, and
fat, pink rectangular erasers, 1 each; sometimes even pens and scissors. I’m the kind of person who loves a sharp
pencil to write with, who looks forward to cracking open a new notebook and inhaling
the smell of fresh paper; who pouts when she wants to write a letter and can’t
find her favorite pen.

So, when Bill said to order myself supplies, I was
excited. I made a list of what I needed,
and carefully inspected every page of the catalog so as not to miss anything. I’d worked in many offices up until then but I’d never had a chance to
choose my own office supplies before. Should I stick
with plain black, functional but boring desk sets? Industrial metal, or plastic? And, if plastic, did I dare to order some of
the newest, name brand plastic accessories that came in pretty colors?

I gambled that Bill would want the front desk to look
impressive, and it paid off when I got approval for the pricier, name-brand
desk set. It was sleek and burgundy, and
all the pieces came with rounded, instead of sharp, corners. I bought an in-box tray, a matching out-box
tray, a pencil cup, and a stapler. I’d
wavered over the tape dispenser – would it be necessary? My one extravagance with Bill’s office
supply budget was the little rectangular paper clip holder: it had a magnet
inside it, so you could give it a shake and the clips would rise to the mouth
of the holder and you could grab one, without any spilling out. Such a luxury.

The rest of the supplies I ordered were practical and
economical – cheap pens, plain green Pendaflex folders, non-descript manila files, a simple metal letter opener, and your
run-of-the-mill brown staple-puller. But
also some of the latest innovation: small yellow sticky pads
called Post-it Notes.

We were equipped.

But then on the second week of my new job, Bill walked into
the office holding a large bag. Inside
was a small Mr. Coffee machine, cups, and supplies to brew coffee. Bill told me that part of my job was to keep
the coffee supplied, and to make a fresh pot whenever I wanted to – but most
importantly on the days he was due in the office. He liked to walk in the door and smell the
coffee.

This was distressing, but not altogether unexpected. In some offices secretaries would still fetch
coffee for their bosses, while in others the bosses got their own without
expecting the women to cater to them. I’d already guessed Bill belonged to the first
group, and I was ready for him. I wanted
to be sure he knew where I stood on this matter: that I was a liberated woman
and his equal, and most certainly did not fetch coffee for anyone. To this end, I quickly suggested the coffee
maker go in Bill’s office rather than in our reception area, so that he could get it himself. I was happy to brew a pot when I got in every day, because I liked to drink it, too -- but the rest was up to him.

Bill frowned at my little speech. I don’t think he ever expected I’d be averse
to being a waitress for him. “In the Home
office”, he offered hopefully, “(his boss) Bob’s secretary always offers me
coffee and brings me a cup just how I like it when I visit – and brings Bob his
coffee whenever he wants it, too, every day!”

“That’s nice”, I
said, “but I don’t do that.” The furrow
on Bill’s brow got a little deeper, and he tilted his head and looked at the
ceiling, as if he was thinking very hard.

“Well” he finally said, “I probably can get it for myself on
normal days, that’s fine, but when Bob visits our offices, I’m going to expect
you to serve us coffee.” He looked at me
expectantly. I frowned back at him. And so, the line in the sand was drawn.

As we continued to work together, there really were no other
bones of contention between us. I was
always on time, I knew my way around the office, and I greeted our clients with
a beguiling telephone voice. His pot of
coffee was always prepared for him when he was in the office.

The first time Bill went out to call on his accounts, he
returned with a stack of handwritten letters for me to type. I was accustomed to doing correspondence for past
bosses. Bill was selling food and his letters were confirmation of how many
units were ordered, and where on the grocery store shelves he’d negotiated
their placement.

But, Bill’s letters were unlike any I'd seen, and had me stumped. They were written in fragmented sentences,
and used unfamiliar sales terms. So, I
would type out drafts exactly as they were written, even though they made no
sense to me at all. I’d read and re-read
the drafts, putting myself in Bill’s place until I thought I understood what he meant to convey. Then, I’d make notes of and go ask him if I
was right. Sometimes I was, sometimes I
wasn’t, but Bill was always able to explain to me at that point what he’d meant to say. I’d take that information and use it to produce
a clear, concise business letter.

Bill
would smile when he read them. His smile
said, “Damn, I’m good.” He'd sign them and send them off, with carbon copies to his boss. He got
compliments from the home office.

“Your
correspondence has really improved, Bill.
It’s impressive.” He took all the
credit.

One day, about a month into our partnership, Bill started to
bring up the coffee thing again. He told
me that he was expecting a visit from his boss Bob, and that when he was there,
it would be important that he be impressed with this little satellite office
we’d created. That meant I’d need to
make sure he felt at home in our office.
And, specifically, that meant serving him coffee. I narrowed my eyes and said nothing, but
shook my head slightly. Nope.

The next day, Bill stood in the reception area where I sat,
hands in his pockets, and tried to make conversation with me – again about
coffee. I was actively disinterested.

Another day, Bill began, “Laurie, Bob’s going to expect you
to bring us coffee. How is it going to
look to him if you don’t?”

“It’s just not something I’m comfortable doing.”

We were in a standoff.
Bill sighed in frustration. I
blinked and kept quiet. I was a rock: a
non-coffee-fetching rock. Inside,
though, I was indignant. Why was this
such a big deal to Bill? Wasn’t I a
contributing member of his team, his partner?
Didn’t I do enough quantifiable, real work at my desk? Didn’t he appreciate that? Did I have to wait on him as well?

The subject of the coffee was never far from us; it was a
whiff of fresh brew that hovered in the background of all of our exchanges,
unspoken, un-served. Bill began to get
more and more desperate for my cooperation.

As the day of The Visit From The Boss approached, and much
to my relief, Bill became pre-occupied with the business at hand, and seemed to
forget about the coffee.

When he arrived, I greeted the boss man and I’m sure I made
a good impression. Then the two of them retired
into Bill’s office to talk about clams and condensed milk. The coffee was made; it stood ready and
waiting in its shiny carafe for them to help themselves.

A few minutes after they’d gone in, though, Bill came back
to the door of his office. I looked up
to see him standing with his hands clasped in front of him, as if in
prayer. He faced me and crinkled up his
face into the mask of a man pleading for his life. “Please” he mouthed silently, and tilted his
head to the side. He shook his clasped
hands up and down. There may have been
tears in his eyes.

He was pathetic.

I’m not sure what happened to me in that moment. I guess I just gave up. I followed him into his office to offer, and
serve, coffee to Bill and Bob. I did
it several times over the course of the day, in fact – and always with a smile
on my face. Bill was visibly relieved. He was glowing. I think I could have asked him for anything I
wanted that day: a raise, a company car – anything.

The next day the big boss Bob was gone, and Bill arrived at
work. It wasn’t long before he thanked
me very profoundly for coming to my senses and serving coffee.

I said, “You’re welcome” and then I gave him my 2 weeks’
notice. It was, I thought, the ultimate
revenge. Don’t take me seriously? Don’t
appreciate what I’m good at? Expect me
to be subservient to you? I think
not!

I spent the next two weeks with my nose in the air, and Bill
spent them acting nonchalant – as if he couldn’t care less I was leaving. He could do without me. He was surely envisioning his next secretary –
the one who would take possession of the little burgundy paper clip holder and
be happy to serve him coffee all day, every day. His seeming ambivalence robbed me of some of the joy of having taken a stand on behalf of secretaries everywhere.

Ah, well. I think about it now and I can’t believe myself. Who was that self-righteous young woman, so
sure of herself and what lay ahead of her that she would quit a cushy job over
having to serve coffee to her boss? Was
it all about the coffee, or was something else going on? I remember I feeling lonely and a little
bored in our two-person office; maybe that is what made it so easy for me to
leave. Or maybe it was just the fact
that, in those days, good jobs grew on trees. Not so in 2016.

Several weeks after, when I was happily installed in my next
working adventure, I got a phone call from a frantic Joanne, the agent who’d
placed me at Borden Foods.

“I can’t find anyone to replace you,” she said. “Bill’s not happy with any of the girls I
send over there. He says none of them
can do his correspondence – that you used to do something special to his
letters.”

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Dennis and I took a ride this weekend to enjoy the beautiful fall color we're having here in Colorado. These photos were mostly taken along Highway 67, in the area between Victor and Cripple Creek, Colorado. Enjoy!

I am very sad that summer has ended...so much went with it this year, for us. But seeing the pretty fall colors cheers me. And I know that summer will come again. Happy October!

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I'm passionate about pretty things and find beauty in shabby and well-loved stuff. I've never met an antique or thrift store I didn't like. And I love to rescue the old and forgotten and make it useful again. Come along and see what I've found and created!